rita booth

My grandmother was the quintessential American pioneer. In 1891, when she was 17, her family left the comfort of their home and heritage in Marietta, Ohio to seek their fortune on the American prairie. Her father, Frank D. Booth, was the son of Horatio Booth, a boat Pilot on the Ohio River, and the grandson of the first Mayor of Marietta, James Mather Booth, an 1804 immigrant from Manchester, England. For over 23 years, Frank Booth was a pilot of the 138 ton J. H. McConnell a side-wheeler passenger steamboat that ran from Parkersburg, West Virginia to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.